Edward (Ted) Pritchard
Engineer, Inventor, Hartnett Award winner, RMIT Lecturer in Thermodynamics, Obsessed with creation of modern compact steam engines
B. Caulfield 26.8.1930 Died Caritas Christi, Kew 16.8.2007

The builder of the worlds first 'modern' steam car, Ted Pritchard was a stubborn, some might say obsessive man. His passing, after a long illness occurred just months before the completion of the latest version of the Pritchard Steam Engines, the design and development of which had dominated his life for more than 50 years.

Ted grew up in his fathers Caulfield engineering workshop where, during the 1950s, he restored a 1923 Stanley Steam. He drove that vehicle around the streets of Melbourne for many years, racing the locally made Holdens, while devising a new generation of steam engine, an engine he felt convinced was capable of competing with the internal combustion engine.

To test his concepts Ted and his father built a 74kW engine fitted to a 5 ton Bedford truck. Test drives of the torquey kerosene fuelled truck caused the editor of "Truck and Bus" magazine at the time to declare it was the best fun he had had for years. The truck is now part of the National Museum's collection of Australian inventions.

In 1964 Ted formed Pritchard Steam Power Pty Ltd and began work on the design and construction of an auto engine. The resulting 33.5kW engine to fitted to a 1963 Ford Falcon which, by 1968 was a daily sight around the inner city.

In 1972 this vehicle, which became known as "the most photographed Falcon in Australia," was air freighted to California where it was used for demonstrations to major car companies and investors. This trip resulted in a significant option payment from US investors and Ted being invited to testify in front of a US Senate committee into alternative fuels.

In 1974 Ted drove the Falcon from Melbourne to Canberra and back, taking Lance Barnard and other Labour Ministers of the day for a joyride around old Parliament House while he was there. That engine was tested at the Ford factory in Geelong and recorded tail pipe emissions that were not equaled until the Euro 2 low emissions standards were introduced in 1998.

Having demonstrated that a steam driven automobile not only worked, but had real operating advantages over internal combustion engines, Ted moved on to design a production model of the power unit. It took longer, and cost more than expected, however finally an advanced Pritchard steam engine was manufactured at the Bendigo Ordnance Factory with backing from both the Federal and the Victorian governments in 1978.

Technically referred to as an external combustion, advanced uniflow steam engine, the "V-Twin" as it was known, was set up on a dynamometer and started first time by Sir Rupert Hamer without ever being test fired prior to Rupert turning the key.

Despite years of overtures from major car companies Ted was never able to attract a major backer. He proceeded to design his own car from the rubber to the chrome, built a prototype and exhibited it in 1981 before finally being forced to pull the plug on Pritchard Steam Power due to lack of funding.

The loss of his business and the shelving of his dream was a heavy blow for Ted, his wife Marion and their young family. After that Ted worked for many years as a lecturer at RMIT teaching, among other things, principles of mechanical engineering and the finer points of the immutable laws of thermodynamics.

In the early years of the new century, while already in his 70s, Ted declared that he would "draw one last engine before I die." He sat down at his drawing board, where, in an estimated 6,000 hours over five years, without any of the computer aided design systems of modern engineers, he formulated, designed and drew in ink with a fine hand, every last nut, bolt and screw of a new Pritchard Engine. Shortly after he finished these drawings his health began to fail.

This engine, known as the S5000 (steam 5kW) is an engine designed to burn low grade fuel, like coconut husks, straw or waste paper, and produce electricity. Ted believed that a small, simple engine that could cleanly burn woody wastes to produce electricity would free many communities from the effort of earning cash to buy diesel to make electricity, and simultaneously create a local economy in making the fuel. In theory the S5000 will also be able to provide steam, heat, distill water, or drive anything you can drive with a belt.

When he finished the drawings for the S5000 Ted declared that he had finally done for steam engines what IBM did for computers, reduce them in scale and increase their power to weight ratio to the point where they would be able to become commonly available and useful technology.

Ted passed away while the first prototype of the S5000 is being manufactured by a Gillon Group subsidiary, MTN Tooling in Bentleigh. Marion Pritchard is still involved in that venture, Pritchard Power Systems Pty Ltd, and the company hopes to be marketing a Pritchard engine by mid 2008.